A Review of The Echo Prophecy by Lindsey Fairleigh

The Echo Prophecy is the story of Lex, a seemingly normal graduate student working as an archaeologist in Egyptian studies, more specifically, as a translator. When Alex suddenly gets asked to be a part of a major dig in Egypt by the dashing Marcus Bahir, everything in her life begins to change. Admittedly, this book began fairly weakly. The secondary characters, specifically, were not well sketched out, and the background of Lex's family was thin. Why, for example, do Lex and her sister Jenny not get along? Their "make up" scene had little background information and seemed a convenient vehicle to make her a target later in the book. This seemed to happen quite a bit, as well as a lack of information about secondary plot points. Once I was about a third of the way through the book, however, the writing suddenly got much better, more complex plot revelations were introduced, and the story became much more riveting. The Nejeret and Nejerette characters are by far the most complex and with the most explanation of their backgrounds and pre-story lives. Even Horu/Marcus, as an Egyptian god, doesn't come off as laughable, but instead fascinating. Overall, this story is driven by a fascinating narrative drive that took off and was quite the adventure. I look forward to reading more of this trilogy. ARC provided by Netgalley

A Review of The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

The Interestings is a story of friendship between 5 people who met a summer camp in 1977. Spirit-In-The-Woods was an arts camp that drew mostly rich kids interested in pursuing music, drama, dance, animation and the like. Julie Jacobsen, rechristened Jules, gets a scholarship to this camp the summer after her father dies of cancer and meets Ash, her brother Goodman, Ethan, Cathy and Jonah. She somehow becomes friendly with this group of "cool kids" and also just as unlikely, stays friends with most of them for the next 30 years. We learn of the internal private lives of each character, although Jules is the central figure. What is most compelling about this story is the flawed nature of these characters. Jules, especially, is nearly unlikable. She is completely self absorbed, although her absorption seems to revolve around he lives of Ethan and Ash, now married and extremely wealthy and successful. Even later in life when she apologizes for being self absorbed, she is still so focused on her apparent envy of the lives of her best friends, she cannot appreciate what she has for herself. Also central to this story is a side plot involving Goodman and Cathy. Goodman, a complete waste of a human being, is accused of a crime that it seems apparent he did commit. His family, however, including Ash and her parents, believe him to be innocent and go to the wall for him. Jules, still carrying a bit of a torch for Goodman, believes in his innocence and even tries to convince his victim that she misinterpreted his gestures. It is the most difficult to read scene in the book, Jules actually trying to convince the victim that the crime wasn't a crime, completely cringe-worthy, but so real. Jules is accused of being weak, which is, in fact, exactly what she is. There are many sub plots here, but this is truly a realistic view of the loss of innocence, both for the characters and time-wise, as the story takes place at the end of the 20th century. I found one of the most profound lines of the story to be this: "You don't always wind up with your soul mate". Truly, a study in the disappointment of life, but also how these characters disappointed themselves. I would very highly recommend this book.

A review of Into the Fire by Jodi McIsaac

Into the Fire, the second in The Thin Veil series, is a continuation of Through the Door, which introduced us to Cedar and Eden, mother and daughter. Although Eden has discovered she's one of the Tuatha de Dannan, or Fae, Cedar discovered that in order to live on Eriu (Earth), her adopted Druid mother made her human, although she is the daughter of the former King and Queen. In this second installment, Cedar comes to Tir Na Nog, the land of her people, to stop Nuala (the bad guy) from using her powers of influence to make herself Queen and start a war with humans to conquer Earth. Those friendly to Cedar and her lover Finn want Cedar, as the daughter of royals, to rule. Cedar agrees but Nuala convinces the high council to make Cedar pass a test, namely to find The Stone of Destiny, a magic stone said to roar when a true King or Queen stands upon it. Cedar accepts and a journey with friends and loved ones begins. I enjoyed the development of Cedar's character in this book very much. She comes into her own, in more ways than one, and she strikes me as an interesting balance between human and Dannan. I was not as impressed with Finn's character. He needs more fleshing out, as he mostly stands behind Cedar, then occasionally turns into a dragon or some other animal when necessary. The return of some known characters helped the story along a bit, but I didn't really get Liam's character. Without giving away plot points, I thought his involvement was a bit ridiculous. The "fight" scene at the end was fun, but a bit convenient, as was the resolution of the problem back in Tir Na Nog. In all, it was fun, and I enjoyed it, but it had its drawbacks, too.

Full Exposure by Tracy Wolff

Full Exposure is definitely a step up from Tie Me Down. Unfortunately, it's a very small step. My complaints are mostly the same, all sex, no story. Serena, the main character, is absurdly obtuse. Her stubborn refusal to accept help from anyone was more annoying than endearing, and was a detraction from the story. It was also far too easy to guess who the stalker was. The author's attempt to make it seem like it might be another character was not very convincing. The ridiculous aspects to the sex scenes were a bit less ridiculous this time around, but I actually found myself skimming over some of the sex scenes because I got bored. Yes, really. Bored with the sex scenes. That should say everything you need to know, right there. There was the potential for an interesting story, here, which is the real shame of it. The author didn't explore anything besides the characters bodies and their capacity for constant sex. ARC provided by Netgalley

Dreamwalker by Andrea Heltsley

I read the book Dreamwalker with high hopes. As you all know, I am a big UF fan and this seemed like it could be an interesting new direction. Unfortunately, it did not pan out as such. To begin with, there was no world building whatsoever. I generally feel that this can be somewhat glossed over if the story line, characters and action are really terrific. Again, a no go. All of these areas are poorly executed. This book was clearly not edited, or if it was, the author should fire the editor, because there were multiple glaring grammatical errors, like verbs not agreeing in a sentence, as well as god-awful dialogue. The dialogue was actually a detraction from this book, it was so clunky. The chemistry between characters was nonexistent, and don't get me started on the "love triangle". The villain was a caricature and not at all scary. In all, not a good book. I do. It recommend this one. ARC provided by Netgalley

Review of Perfect by Rachel Joyce

The book Perfect is a story of how something that seems small and insignificant can change the lives of not only an entire family, but extend to many others as well. In 1972 when 11 year old Byron learns from his best friend, James, that the government will be adding 2 seconds to the time in order to align the clocks properly with the sun's rotation, he becomes so obsessed with how this possibly could occur that he sets in motion a chain of events that will devastate not only his own family, but James' as well. Rachel Joyce writes a side-by-side tale of past and present, that begins somewhat slowly. It is written with such beautiful language that when the events begin to speed up, it's almost secondary to the flow of words. The past tale tells of the events of 1972, while the story in the present tells of a man named Jim, late of Besley House, a local mental institution that had closed and left its residents to find their own way, many of whom, like Jim, haven't been able to function in society for 40 or more years. These two stories eventually reach their separate crescendoes, while simultaneously bringing the reader to fully understand what has happened to each character and why. Ms. Joyce has quite a talent for writing about mental illness from the inside. Her descriptions of OCD from the sufferer's perspective are illuminating. The redemptive quality to this story is sad but also quite joyous for its characters. In all, an excellent read. I highly recommend it.

Review of Circle of Death (Damask Circle #2)

Circle of Death, the second installment of the Damask Circle series, is a bit of a step up from the first, but with a great deal of similarities. The main characters, Doyle and Kirby, are similar to Maddie and Jon in many ways. Doyle is a bit of a rogue, but more smitten and more committed than Kirby to a budding romance. Very similar to Jon's character. Kirby is afraid of her power as Maddie was and had also killed with it, making her reluctant to use it again. It seems she, like Maddie, used her power to protect herself and other young girls from an abuser. The story seemed a bit smoother than Circle of Fire. The romance angle still far-fetched, but the ending was a lot less ridiculous. We also got to learn a bit more about what the Damask Circle actually is in this book. Still not terribly well crafted, as was my complaint from the first book. Mariel, the bad guy, wasn't very scary. Certainly less so than the abundant evil creatures in this story, eating brains and the like. Better, but not great. ARC provided by Netgalley

Review of Tie Me Down by Tracy Wolff

I love a good sexy book. The more hard-core loving, the better. I am not a fan of the romance genre, per se, but I will read a book that has a romantic story line, especially if there is a hard-edged story to go along with it. Unfortunately, this story did not fit the bill for me. The police procedural story line was weak at best, and almost seemed written as an afterthought. That would have been ok with me if the sex story line had done the job. That part started out fine, although I thought it a bit weird that the first sex scene was only a few pages into the book. There was absolutely no build up between the characters. No sexual tension, except the tension the author told us was there between the characters. That also might have been ok, except that every time these two had sex, whatever they experienced was the "hardest" or "wettest" or "strongest" they had ever experienced sex or their body parts. After a while, when the author wrote this EVERY SINGLE TIME the characters had sex, it got a little ridiculous. This book just didn't do it for me. ARC provided by Netgalley

Circle of Fire (Damask Circle #1)

This is clearly a first book. I am a big fan of Keri Arthur, having burned through the Riley Jensen series and eagerly reading the Risa Jones series as well. This book isn't half as compelling as all of those others. For starters, this is the first in the series of The Damask Circle. Well. Having read this book, I don't have the faintest clue what the Damask Circle is, does or represents. There is exactly one sentence in the story referring to what they are, and we don't actually meet any of their members, other than Jon. So let's talk about Jon. We don't actually learn anything about him either, other than the fact that he's a hawk shifter and hunts evil magic users. And yet Maddie, a weak character herself, takes him back at the end, after an 18 month absence, with no reluctance at all. He's not so bad as a romantic lead, or at least he has potential but it isn't realized in the story. Maybe the comparison isn't fair, but he's no Quinn. As for Maddie, maybe I'm just used to kick-ass women like Riley and Risa, who are both more complicated and more interesting than Maddie. Maddie at least had the backstory that Jon was lacking, but one that didn't add much to the story, except as a vehicle for her constant terror. I also found Eleanor, the "bad guy", to be a cardboard cut-out when compared to characters like Madeline Hunter and quite a few others from Arthur's other stories. I felt almost as though these books were a framework, one that the author could have easily enhanced with some of the complicated plot points or ideas that she has previously. The one thing I did enjoy in this story was the lack of vampires that have become so ubiquitous in UF novels. I liked the fire starter angle, as well as a non-wolf shifter. For those reasons, I think it's possible this series might have some potential. I will try the next book in the series and hope for the best. ARC provided by NetGalley

The Cleansing by Sam Kates

The Cleansing is an interesting tale with a very of-the-moment theme: the Doomsday Virus. Throw in some thousands-of-years old aliens, a few cultural references, and you've got one heck of an action story. I found it fascinating that "the people" believe themselves to be above and better than humans, who they refer to as drones, but that their behavior is as human as you can get. Some, like both Milandra and Peter, are sympathetic to the human cause, even after spending thousands of years watching us commit all manner of violent acts on each other. Others, like Simone and Troy, are cruel, violent and epitomize the very worst of humanity while still feeling superior. I enjoyed how the author made us guess who was going to be a "good guy" (for lack of a better word), and who a "bad guy". There were some interesting surprises along the way, here, which added to the originality and excitement of the story. In all, I throughly enjoyed his book. ARC copy provided by Netgalley